I began my career brewing career in the winter of my senior year in highschool (I wasn't even legally allowed to vote let alone drink yet). My parents have been very supportive from the beginning since they saw the amount of work it took to create beer and the obvious educational benefits of learning the craft (from machine shop skills to biochemistry, brewing is a learning experience on many fronts). At the time I only did 5 gallon extract batches with a partial boil and the occasional use of specialty grains. I never bottled and splurged for a corny keg setup. I re-purposed some equipment like an old turkey fryer as my brew kettle and heat source as well as my brothers old college mini fridge as a kegerator. I was lucky that my parents like a cold house (68-70F) so I had a great place to ferment my beers. I loved the hobby so much but sadly I had to step away from it after the summer since I was going away to school at The University of Virginia (GO HOOS!!!!) to earn a degree in Computer Engineering.
Fast Forward 4.5 years later and I am at home cleaning through some old junk and i come across my old brewing equipment ( 2 buckets, Copper IC and some other smaller equipment). I also found 2 bottles of this espresso porter i made that i had a neighbor bottle for me with his blichman beer gun (my last post was about coffee in a porter haha). The beer was still good after all this time and smooth as ever. I FELT THE URGE TO BREW AGAIN!!!!! Lucky for me a homebrew shop opened a bit over a mile away in my hometown while I was at school so i picked up an extract kit and began brewing away (started with an simple amber ale).
Thanks to my college degree, increasing patience and the help of my girlfriend brewing is way way easier and less overwhelming compared to when i was just a senior in highschool who has barely consumed beer let alone made it. I have upgraded to all grain, 10 gallon kettle and am beginning to reuse yeast. My next step is to utilize my college degree more and make my brewing fully electronic (brewpi for monitoring and pumps for brewday).
If you are on reddit I post their too under bigjuicyk
Fast Forward 4.5 years later and I am at home cleaning through some old junk and i come across my old brewing equipment ( 2 buckets, Copper IC and some other smaller equipment). I also found 2 bottles of this espresso porter i made that i had a neighbor bottle for me with his blichman beer gun (my last post was about coffee in a porter haha). The beer was still good after all this time and smooth as ever. I FELT THE URGE TO BREW AGAIN!!!!! Lucky for me a homebrew shop opened a bit over a mile away in my hometown while I was at school so i picked up an extract kit and began brewing away (started with an simple amber ale).
Thanks to my college degree, increasing patience and the help of my girlfriend brewing is way way easier and less overwhelming compared to when i was just a senior in highschool who has barely consumed beer let alone made it. I have upgraded to all grain, 10 gallon kettle and am beginning to reuse yeast. My next step is to utilize my college degree more and make my brewing fully electronic (brewpi for monitoring and pumps for brewday).
If you are on reddit I post their too under bigjuicyk
